Tips for Helping Daytime Heartburn

While nighttime heartburn is the most common type of reflux, some people do indeed suffer from reflux in the daytime. This type of acid reflux is an entirely different animal from nighttime reflux. The main reason is that nighttime reflux takes very little to trigger (since you are lying down, its much easier to get reflux) compared to daytime reflux. Something really has to stress out your stomach in order for you to start getting daytime reflux.

The good news here is that since it takes something major to cause acid reflux during the day, it is usually easily corrected. Another interesting thing to note is that daytime reflux is most common in men; acid reflux in women is much less common during the day (except in the case of pregnancy, but that is another topic altogether).

Really, if you get heartburn during the day but do not get it at night odds are your problems boil down to one of two things: clothing and work.

Clothing as a Cause of Heartburn:

This one takes a lot of people by surprise, but it is a very real cause of heartburn. The real culprit here is dress pants, in particular men's slacks. Men hate to shop and will try to cycle through the same set of dress pants for their entire adult life, with usually their spouse ending up buying them new pants to avoid embarassment.

While it does save some money, the problem with this is that men of a certain age tend to gain weight, but refuse to buy new pants. The end result of this is that men wear pants way too tight for them, this pressure is exerted on the stomach (especially after lunch) and this needs to heartburn and bladder problems. This is actually been dubbed as "Tight Pants Syndrome" in many parts of North America, simply because men were having so many health problems due to wearing tight pants!

As a result, if you've put on a little weight, you either need to buy some new pants or lose some weight (preferably both). Running around in pants that are too small for you is a great way to get daytime heartburn.

Work as a Source of Heartburn

It is well-known that many stressful events can lead to heartburn. However, destressing at work is not always so easy, but necessary if you want to lose weight. The two things that I like to do are going for a walk at lunch and practicing "straw breathing" twice a day.

Going for a walk is self-explanatory - bring a pair of walking shoes and walk around the building for 15-30 minuets during lunch. It's a great way to burn some extra calories (to work on part 1), as well as a great way to de-stress and even reduce heartburn from the motion itself.

Another good technique is straw breathing. To execute this, breath in deep through your nose, only allowing your stomach to expand. Then, purse your lips and forcefully exhale, again keeping your ribcage still and only moving your abdomen. This is a great stress reducer and helps reduce the upper neck and traps which we often associate with stress.

Try adding these techniques and you will be surprised and how quickly your daytime heartburn resolves!